September 25, 2005

Phil Johnson went above and beyond the normal yesterday when he left some very kind comments about my new blog design: not only the mere fact that he liked it, but why.

But Phil really figured out how to score, um, scores of CrustyTM brand brownie points by being the first person to figure out what this is meant to represent:

When someone is looking over my shoulder while I work on the site, or surfing it with me looking over their shoulder, invariably the question is asked: "What's with all those rectangles"? Phil caught on right away: they represent my initials, SM.

Until a few years ago, the pulp and paper mill in my hometown was owned by E. B. Eddy Forest Products Ltd. (Now it's owned by Domtar Inc. and is part of the less-interestingly-named "Specialty Papers Division.") One of the first things you would see driving across the bridge into town was the mill with its huge "E" logo, made up of white rectangles on a forest green circle. About five years ago when I wanted to design a personal logo for myself for online use, I patterned it after the same style of lettering.

Phil also correctly notes that the graphic was inspired by the Chrysler winged badge, which is itself an Art Deco design which Chrysler used on its vehicles at its inception in 1924, and revived in 1994 after thirty years of the ubiquitous "pentastar." Chrysler has always been associated with Deco, most notably the Chrysler Building in New York and the streamlined Airflow (of which the PT Cruiser is a modern interpretation). Many of Chrysler's newest body designs hearken back to the Age of Jazz.

(Incidentally, I gave the badge a shot of photorealism by reflecting a photograph into the "chrome" when I rendered it. Ten Bonus PointsTM to the first person to correctly identify what the image is of!)

By the way, Phil's latest comic-book cover is a scream. "True-Life Tales from the Pomo-Drivel Church®." Heh heh.